Are you guys familiar with the book Blue Guitar? A guitar collector named Scott Chinery commissioned 22 top Archtop luthiers to build for him an archtop of any style or design with only one specification - it must be blue and have an 18" body.

Why not have the luthiers on this site do something similar? We could all vote on woods for the neck and body, and other than that, run with it with your own personal style.

Heres how I think we should structure the "rules":

1. It must be 4 strings, pretty universal. Keep it simple.
2. We (the forum/luthiers) will jointly decide on the neck, fingerboard, body and top woods.

Thats all.

Everything else would be open to the luthiers interpretation. You could decide on what kind of neck joint you want to use, the thickness of the tops, the scale, the electronics etc etc etc.

Basically the two rules are just to have a make all the instruments comparable in some sense.

Let me know what you think, I would be very excited to make this happen.

that would be cool, but who would commission it?

that would be cool, but who would commission it?

I guess I wasn't clear in my first post, I am sorry.

To answer the question, no one would commission it, we'd simply be doing it for fun. Perhaps charity?

that would be cool, but you're talking 400-700 in materials for those of us that don't have scrap laying around.

I think to keep in the spirit of Chinery's project, the only specification should be that it be a blue 4-string. That way we'd get a lot of diversity with the outcome.

Yeah, that would be really cool... if only I had spare materials hanging around, I'd totally do that!

A guitar collector named Scott Chinery commissioned 22 top Archtop luthiers to build for him an archtop of any style or design with only one specification - it must be blue and have an 18" body.

Off topic but this guy also owned the original bat mobile.

how about, each luthier on this forum "donates" or makes a small piece of the bass and passes it on, so it builds up as it goes from luthier to luthier, that'd be more fun, only one condition, each part has to be hand made except the electronics

That might be problematic... it worked for the MIMF though, when they made their fund-raiser bass.

only one small problem...who's gonna keep it...

The starving kids in Africa? ;)

i suppose it can be sold for charity, that'd be nice

Just take any of the 4 strings currently pictured on this forum photoshop it blue. Project done.

I don't get the point of this. All the luthiers would be doing exactly what they already do except they would be painting the result blue

TheShadow2001 - have you read the book the OP is referring to? The idea was that the collector in question was so stunned by a Jimmy D'Aquisto archtop that Jimmy finished in a blue burst, that he wanted to "shake up the archtop world" a bit by commissioning archtops from 22 of the top builders in the world, and he sent them each an identical bottle of blue stain with which to color the instrument.

It wasn't just a question of color. He asked each builder to build their "dream guitar", and of course he paid good money for each one (obviously money was no object). It was about artistry with a theme, and the different path that each craftsman would take to that end.

It's a neat idea, and one I would wholeheartedly embrace, given the opportunity. I would strive to craft something unique, exceptional, and quite possibly completely different from any other instrument I've made in the past. The point in this case is, however, that no one is "commissioning" these instruments, so it would have to be out of pocket on the part of each luthier, and most of us don't have either the extra time or the available funds to perform such an endeavor gratis. At least, I don't. I'm strapped already ;)

i can go off into a whole other world with this...

One could always offer them here on TB first and then on eBay at a slightly reduced price, and donate 75% of any overhead (when costs have been paid) to some fund, for example the Rocco Prestia Medical Fund.

i suppose it can be sold for charity, that'd be nice

yeah sell it and donate to TB